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“Finally!” she finally shouts. “I've been telling you this for a year now.”

I groan.

“You are in love with Simon.”

I take a very large drink of wine. “He left me.”

The room falls silent.

I stare down at my hands. “He left me,” I repeat. “We'd been together for years. I was dreaming of marriage, and houses, and babies, and everything else and he just... left me.”

I laugh bitterly. “I told myself we weren't right for each other. That if he really loved me, he wouldn't have left. That if he wanted a future with me, I wouldn't have had to beg him to commit. So we’re better off just co-parenting.”

The confession hangs between us.

“I don't know how to date somebody else when every time Theo does something cute, Simon is still the first person I want to tell.” My eyes sting. “Every major thing in my life somehow still involves him.”

“Because he's your co-parent.”

“It's more than that.” The words slip out before I can stop them. “Every time something happens—good or bad—I still want him.”

There. I said it.

The room doesn't explode.

The ceiling doesn't collapse.

Jamie just nods. “Yeah.”

I laugh weakly. “I'm pathetic.”

“No.”

"It's embarrassing."

"What is?"

"Being this hung up on somebody who doesn't want me."

Jamie's expression softens. "Blaire—"

"No. Seriously." I shake my head. "He left me."

The kitchen suddenly feels very small.

"I wanted to marry him." My throat tightens. "And he didn't want me."

Jamie listens without interrupting.

"He didn't hesitate. He didn't fight for us. He just..." I shrug helplessly. "Left."

I stare down at my wine glass. "And then I got pregnant."

The memory still hurts. I spent months grieving the relationship while carrying our child.

I shrug. “He doesn't feel the same way.”

The certainty of it settles heavily in my chest. It's a truth I've repeated to myself so many times over the years that it's become permanent.